Charlie Wilson's War Page #7

"and will fully cooperate with

the ongoing investigation. "

Okay. Run it by Stu.

Yes, sir.

Gus!

- You and three other guys?

- Yeah.

Well, I'll tell you what I told

Harold Holt. I can get the money.

Now, the 10 million is a

joke? Fine. What do you need?

- To do what?

- To shoot down the helicopters.

To shoot down the helicopters.

If we can help them shoot

down the goddamn helicopters,

everything's gonna start going our way.

You know, there's a story about

a Zen master and a little boy.

All right, and... Yeah.

It's Stu.

You should be on this.

Stu?

No. No, it's gonna be fine.

It was a party in Vegas.

Lot of drugs, lot of

people I don't know.

I was there with Crystal

Lee and this guy Paul Brown

who wanted me to invest

in a TV show for Crystal.

I don't know.

I don't know, it's gonna be like

a Dallas set in Washington.

What... Stu, what does it matter?

Okay.

Okay.

Will Crystal back up your

story that you weren't using?

Just go put out the statement.

You know what?

You never should have been in

the same room, Congressman.

Gus!

Yeah. The Swiss make an antiaircraft gun

called the Oerlikon.

Listen, Charlie.

Twenty-millimeter cannon,

high rate of fire.

I know the Oerlikon.

Don't forget the limo driver.

What do you mean?

Well, you took a limo from

the casino to the airport.

Maybe it's easy enough to track down

a limo driver, hand him a subpoena,

ask him if anything was

going on in the back seat,

so, you know, in terms

of cleaning up this...

Were you listening at the door?

- I wasn't listening at the door.

- Were you standing

- at the goddamn door listening to me?

- No.

How could you even...

That's a thick door!

You stood there and you listened to me?

I wasn't standing at the door.

Don't be an idiot.

I bugged the Scotch bottle.

What?

Yeah, it's got a little

transmitter on it.

I got a little thing in

my ear. Get past it.

I don't believe this. Who the

f***... Who the f*** are you?

It's not in my ear

right now. Take it easy.

I was gonna tell you about it, but

I had to leave the room for a second

- 'cause you were getting indicted.

- I ain't getting indicted.

- Is there a camera in here?

- No, that's a little paranoid.

That's right.

Will you take the bug

off my Scotch bottle now?

Sure.

I saw two kids, had

their hands blown off

when they tried to pick

up something shiny.

Sometimes the kids think

those bombs are toys.

- For children to pick up.

- Yeah.

- They're raping the women and...

- Yeah.

...bayoneting the pregnant ones.

It's as bad as it can be.

But they still want to go

out and fight the Red Army.

Each and every one of them. I've

never seen anything like that.

No, me, neither.

Let's be clear. I want to kill

Russians as much as you do.

Is the Oerlikon the right gun?

Is that what they should have?

Now, you know what?

You've had a long flight.

You're under a lot of stress.

You're under arrest.

I ain't under arrest.

- Do you drink?

- Oh, God, yeah.

Well, should we try this Scotch,

or is it gonna release

sarin gas when I open it?

Oh, I don't think so,

but open it over there.

How'd a guy like you

get into the Agency?

- What, you mean a street guy?

- You ain't James Bond.

And you ain't Thomas Jefferson,

so let's call it even.

Deal.

Since there's no other

reason I should be here,

let's assume it's 'cause

I'm very good at this.

They need to shoot down

the helicopters, Gus.

They need at least, what, 50 Oerlikons.

Yeah, it's gonna cost a

lot more than $10 million.

And I say for the fourth

time, I can raise the money.

Yeah, how?

Is the Oerlikon the gun

I should be recommending?

I'm not sure.

- Who is sure?

- A weapons guy named Mike Vickers.

- I'll call him.

- Yeah. Let's call him right now.

All right, here's a test.

You see the nerdy-looking

kid in the white shirt

playing against the four guys at once?

Yeah.

Which one of the guys do you think

is a strategic weapons expert

with the CIA?

That was a trick question, Charlie.

It's the nerdy-looking

kid in the white shirt.

All right, no reason this

can't be fun, you know.

- Mike!

- Yeah, just a second.

Need you now, Mike.

Keep playing.

Mike Vickers, this is

Congressman Charles Wilson

of the Defense

Appropriations Subcommittee.

- How are you, sir?

- Fine, thank you.

- How old are you?

- I'll be 30 next week.

This is the CIA's weapons expert?

One of them. But he's the most senior.

- Look...

- Mike!

Yeah, bishop to queen's knight 7.

See? He's playing without

even looking at the board.

That's a useful skill

if Afghanistan's ever

invaded by Boris Spassky.

Did my office not make it clear

to Langley that I'm in no mood

- to be f***ed around with?

- Charlie...

You answer to me or you

answer to Jim Baker.

Which do you want?

All right, the guy's a f***ing Green

Beret, Charlie. He

trained with the SEALs.

- No one's trying to f*** with you!

- Mike?

- Yeah, what was your move?

- Knight to queen's bishop 5.

All right, queen to king's rook 3.

Guy on the right, you don't

want to trade queens with me.

Sh*t.

All right, I apologize.

Okay.

Everybody friends?

As a former naval officer myself,

Mike, I should've known better.

As a former naval officer, I'd

have been surprised if you had.

- Now, what the f***?

- Hey.

- He said he was sorry.

- Hey.

What can I do for you, sir?

All right, he wants to make a

recommendation to his Subcommittee.

Now, the Swiss made Oerlikon S.T.A.

Antiaircraft cannon,

that's what you'd use

to shoot down the Ml-24 Hind

gunship in the mountains, right?

Well, the Oerlikon's a good start,

but the Russians will just start

flying higher altitude missions.

So what else do they need?

Same thing you give us.

AK-47 s, AK-74s, AKMS.

The Soviets didn't come into

Afghanistan on a Eurail Pass.

They came in T-55 tanks.

The fighters need RPG-7

anti-tank grenade launchers,

Katyusha 107 mm rockets, wire mines,

plastic mines, bicycle

bombs, sniper rifles,

ammunition for all the above

and frequency-hopping radios

and burst transmitters

so these guys aren't so

f***ing easy to find.

Well, I've written it all

in a report you can read.

You'd be the first one who did.

Send a copy of it to me by

secure courier right away.

- I will. All right.

- All right.

There was a report?

It's not that simple.

- Why not?

- Well, for one thing it's covert.

When an Afghan freedom

fighter gets captured,

it can't be with an

American-made weapon on him.

That's how a cold war

turns into an actual war,

and that's something you

want to keep a good eye on.

So anything we give

them has to look like

it could have plausibly been

captured from the Soviets.

- Yeah, that's right.

- You know who's good at that?

- Israel and Egypt.

- That's right.

You know what Vickers

just described back there

could cost as much as $40 million.

- I can get the appropriation.

- But how?

I want to know how are you gonna

get the approval of Congress

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